Parliament e-mail: Investigators still clueless

The investigation into the hoax Parliament bomb e-mail has not yielded any breakthrough yet.

A senior police official in Tirunelveli told UNI that no progress had been made till now and that special teams from Chennai and Delhi were still camping in the town.

He scotched rumours that the special teams had left.

After it was ascertained that the e-mail was sent from Palayamkottai, a twin city of Tirunelveli, two browsing centres, Broad Band Net Cafe and Nellai Online, were searched by the local police and also by the special teams.

The propreiters of both the cyber cafes had been taken into custody for questioning along with some of their employees. They are yet to be released.

Police "almost fixes" e-mail author

During inquiry, Muthukumar, the propreiter of Broad Band Net Café, had said that a bearded youth had used the computer terminal in the morning.

When photographs of some suspects, members of Islamic fundamentalist outfits, were shown, he could not identify any of them.

The font of the e-mail, he had said, was not used at Broad Band Net Cafe, leading to the search of Nellai Online for the second time by the team from Delhi.

But it failed to yield anything tangible, sources said.

Earlier, the police secured two college lecturers, Sheikh Zinda and Gnanniyar, and three students, Thapparai, Abbas and Fakkruddin for questioning. They were set free later.

Meanwhile, browsing centres throughout southern Tamil Nadu had put in place a logbook to register the names and addresses of customers.

In Rajapalayam in Virudhunager district, customers were being asked to furnish proof of identity like ration cards. This was reportedly on police direction.